Book #14: First They Killed My Father

First They Killed My Father
by Ung Loung

This book tells the real-life experience of 8-year-old Ung Loung as Cambodia changes from a democratic state to a communist-ruled country overnight. The Pol Pot regime overthrows the government, and determines to purge the country of all western influence. While the village people are considered "base people" and "pure", all citizens from the cities have been tainted and must be purified. Over the span of the next 4 years, a fourth of the entire Cambodian population die of starvation or are murdered.

This is a shocking, true story told very candidly. A really good account of a story that isn't often told.